Knowing Evil
God didn’t intend that humans may know evil and fall into sin. But when He created free will beings, there was a risk that some of His creatures may exercise their free will to rebel against Him. By giving intelligent beings total freedom, the Lord knew beforehand that He would face danger. But He knew it would be better to create nothing at all than to create creatures without free choice (Joshua 24:15).
For God understood that only creatures with freedom of choice could have a loving relationship with Him because true love doesn’t use force. And because the very nature of free choice is to be free from force, any decisions made are the humans own responsibility (Galatians 6:5).
There is no reason for Lucifer to have rebelled against God, but Lucifer chose a different path in opposition to God. If the Creator were to destroy immediately all those that opposed Him, freedom of choice would not exist and God’s beings may harbor doubts and worship Him out of fear not out of love (1 John 4:18). So, the Lord allowed the devil time to display His principles.
The Lord will finally destroy sin only after every being in the universe has seen that the devil’s rule is deadly. And when the controversy ends, humans will fully understand the principles of God’s kingdom and the devil’s kingdom. Everyone in the universe will see the difference between the love of God and the cruel hate of the devil (Philippians 2:10; Isaiah 45:23).
But the only One that truly suffered from giving God’s creatures freedom of choice is God Himself. For He took the responsibility of saving humans upon Himself by sacrificing His innocent Son (John 3:16) to give mankind that was deceived a second chance at making the right choice. “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13).
In His service,
BibleAsk Team
